Robert Mailer Anderson

Billie Burke's parents have just died in a car accident and -- despite the objections of her aunt and uncle -- their will specifies that their teen daughter is to be given into the guardianship of their best friend from college, a gay man who runs an independent movie theater in the small town of Liberal, Kansas. The focus of the story is split between forming a foster family and pushing back against the homophobia that is rife in the conservative community.

I'm not sure how the real town of show more Liberal will feel about their portrayal here, but at least they get some free promotion for "Dorothy's House," a museum based on their claim to being the home town of Dorthy Gale from the Wizard of Oz franchise.

I was engaged by this book, but as I start to write a review, everything that occurs to me sounds negative. The story is a tad too long, and it and the art are a bit stiff. The fact that the struggle with homophobia is from the perspective of the straight protagonist seems off -- evoking white savior movies about racism -- but it makes sense as the writer seems to be an ally rather than #ownvoices. The contrast of the homophobia with the town's name and promotion of gay icon Dorothy is pretty heavy-handed irony, starting to approach cringe.

After I finished, I realized I had read another book by this same team that I didn't like very much: Windows On The World.

And . . . Wait! Wait! Wait! You know what? I'm just going to stop writing this review before I talk myself out of liking this book. show less

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, a young man named Fernando Reynoso from Mazatlan, Mexico, goes to New York City to seek information about his missing father, an undocumented immigrant who worked in the Windows of the World restaurant atop the World Trade Center. As Fernando pays to have himself smuggled across the border, I started to flash back to American Dirt and the controversy surrounding that regarding authentic voices as I am unsure that any of the creators of this graphic novel show more are actually Hispanic. I tried to verify with a few Google searches, but found nothing conclusive, just that Robert Mailer Anderson seems to be married to a Silicon Valley heiress and is quite well off now despite a childhood spent in poverty.

Setting that aside, I next found myself distracted by several of the drawn characters seeming to be based on real life actors like Luis Guzman and Edward James Olmos. Only after finishing did I notice the "Now a major motion picture" blurb on the cover. (It's true! I just grab books off the shelf and start reading without looking closely at the front or back covers for fear of spoilers.) But in searching the book's creators, I found out that this graphic novel is actually an adaptation of the screenplay for the film instead of being the source of the film. So apparently it was drawn using the images of the people they intended to cast. (Guzman's part seems to be played by a younger guy in the trailer, a castmate of Olmos' on Mayans M.C.) The movie was scheduled to be released during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, but has since ended up on a Spanish language streaming service called VIX. Okay.

At this point I feel like I spent more time researching the book afterward than I did reading it.

And how did I actually like it? Well, it was kind of blah, with its slow pacing and cliched writing: our hero ends up in NYC meeting some stock colorful characters and a young woman for a perfunctory romance. Eventually, he discovers some secrets about his father that change everything, and I have to wonder if one of those secrets might be upsetting to people who actually lost loved ones on 9/11, because dad ain't dead, he's just using a real tragedy to pull a bratty hoax..

I may watch the movie sometime, now that I know it exists, just to see if Olmos can give the slight story some heft. But I'm worried because Fernando is played by Ryan Guzman, who I watch on CBS' 9-1-1, where I find his acting to be quite wooden. show less

A well worked-over first novel: high-octane energy and exuberance, metastasized metaphors, but mostly a 200 page manrant against all things holy of the 60s, 70s, 80s. Anderson details hippy childmolesters, back-to-earth pig grunters, and road-bar, flat-line, low lifers.

Earlier American cultures fare no better: 50s best-gen, pent up parents along with Anderson's prior-life, Miami suburban marketeer, missionary-postion existence.

He seems to have purged himself with his one novel and moved on show more to better things as an apparent richguy, a fund raiser for Obama, and an Opera Board member.

Worth the read for non-stop references to the artifacts of the era. show less

Received this an as an ARC...A Graphic depiction of an immigrant from Mexico searching for his father after the 9/11 tragedy. This would be good read for juniors and seniors, it’s a little too mature for students younger. I liked how it was drawn in black and white, stressing the sadness and depression of that time period. There were times as I was reading the panels, that I got a little bit lost with the story. I would have to go back and re-read in order to understand what was going on. show more This disrupted the flow of the story. Otherwise a solid story of learning how to move on and realize what is important in life while trying to survive in a new country. show less